LONDON – If you’re trying to make basketball a global sport, what better way to bring attention to the game than having a weekend packed full of high school basketball games with a college doubleheader in London. Talk about growing the global game.
This first-time experience for four USA high school basketball powerhouses: Christ The King, Middle Village, NY; Pace Academy, Atlanta, Ga, Mater Dei, Santa Ana, CA and Paul VI, Chantilly, VA will highlight the first Hoophall International an initiative of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA.
These games will be a part of the Hoophall London Showcase weekend when Marist plays Maine and Kentucky faces Michigan at the O2 Arena on Sunday. This is the same space where the NBA plays many of their Europe games.
The mantra ‘Grow the Game’ has been a consistent message over the past decade from every stakeholder in basketball starting at the top with the NBA and President Adam Silver. And with the covid shutdown, this first-time international high school event took over four years to execute.
“Basically this is the 2020 plan that’s now a 2022 happening,” explained Greg Procino, Hoophall vice-president Basketball Operations. “We pushed it out to a second year for the unknown of Covid.” (In 2021 everyone coming to the UK had to have a pre-travel covid test, a test within 24hrs of arrival and an exit clear covid test that made travel expensive for one person let alone a team.) “This took longer to create because we had to recreate everything but the vision was stated in 2019 when the NBA moved their game from London to Paris (2020).”
I was here in January 2019 for the NBA Wizards-Knicks and the game was a tough Ticket game to get with many professional players, coaches and managers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa plus fans attending. It’s a similar idea to the NFL having regular season games here each fall.
“Basketball is still growing here locally in this market. When we were doing homework on how to build a basketball event in London, we had to try to engage the basketball community at all levels, and how to promote basketball as a sport. It ultimately gave us great event awareness for the US College games that culminate the weekend.”
“We able to engage with the NBA Basketball London office, the basketball England office, the London Lions (professional team) and we started to piece together all this feedback about basketball and the community here, And this was one of the takeaways here that this is something we can bring to an area to help build the game locally.”
The Hoophall just didn’t run a two-day high school tournament but had the American coaches here talk to some of the Basketball England prospective students how to get into American basketball opportunities from high school to college. These coaches supported the Hoophall Clinic for 60 middle-aged kids to give them a taste of American basketball. These players get to attend both the Hoophall International and the college London Showcase for the full experience.
The experience was a two-way street too for the four high school teams.
“When they took us to the Staples Center last year, I thought wow, that was the pinnacle of it. Then said we were going to London this year, I can’t remember any high school teams in the season going out of the country. We’re blessed to be one of the four, “said long time Christ the King Head Coach Joe Arbitello
Christ the King defeated Pace Academy in the third-place game 52-47 behind UCLA commit Brandon Williams’ 20-point effort. Paul VI breezed past Mater Dei 75-47 as 6-10 guard Ben Hammond scored 14 points while Maryland commit DeShawn Harris-Smith and 6-10 stretch four Garrett Sunda added 12 points each to claim the Championship banner.
“The game is secondary which we never say as coaches,” explained Arbitello. “But this, It’s more about being in a different country. For the most part the kids on our team this is the only time they will travel outside the country in their basketball career. Their colleges aren’t going to do it, they’re probably not going to play in the NBA. My one kid (Brandon Williams) who’s going to UCLA, he’ll probably do it because they’ll travel. But you have to take in the whole experience, the bus tour, the people because this is something you’ll look back on ten years from now and we were truly truly lucky and blessed.”
NOTES: The next big Hoophall basketball event will be the 21st annual Hoophall Classic running from January 12-16, 2023 at Springfield College, MA. This event will feature 33 high school basketball games, both boys and girls teams from around the country. Most of the top powerhouse boys basketball high school, prep schools and academy’s will be in attendance. The girls teams from Christ the King and Paul VI will be at the event along with the featured contest between Sidwell Friends, DC and Sierra Canyon, CA.
